Management, Gravity Was an Entity, Amorelle Jacox and Jessi Li
On view : February 23 - March 31, 2024
Upon initial impression is the seamless acute sensibility in curation when selecting these two artists to be shown in tandem: Amorelle Jacox’s paintings provide primordial pools of contemplation while Jessi Li’s didactic sculptures explore life dynamics through humorous outlets, lightening the mood and steering away from too deep and heavy of a ponderous quagmire.
Amorelle Jacox’s large scale oil paintings are all-absorbing engulfing voids that house dimensions of phantasmal human figures veiled with strobes of coloured lights, sprinkled cosmic glimmers make appearences, sometimes solo. The human figurations are boxy and almost clumsy in their rigidity, the ethereal diaphanous elements of celestial ephemera grease the wheels of the two’s contrasting visual identities. In Continuous Matter a nocturnal galactic astral-scape envelopes an inward expansion of self. Two large bodies emerge from a crimson puddle, as the bodies swirl inwards along the spiral they diminish in scale - from a distance they appear as a smudged trail yet in close proximity their adumbrations are distinguishable. This is repeated in several other paintings.The placement of the smaller figures within the composition endearingly satisfies a naive child-like wonder and hope of discovering a little microcosm. Within the vast voids is an infinitude of other souls - at the end of the day isn’t that something we all hope for and find solace in. Whether the other bodies are extraneous dimensions of the self, of others, or a coalescence of all the above Jacox’s works provide a cradle of contemplation and introspection.
Jessi Li’s sculptural works are fun, didactic yet self-aware and almost semi-biblical or mythological in their straightforward symbolic dynamics. Displayed on pedestals, lead crystal sculptures of snakes sequentially numbered with the title Chiasmus intertwine themselves into clay rocks, while lead crystal rat corpses lay nearby on the floor. The ouroboros riddle of a sculpture scratches a cerebral itch: the snake is predatory and symbolizes impending death yet it is alive, however the preyed upon rat is in a post-mortem state - this is the chiasmus, the inversion of expected dynamics is furthermore emphasized through the repeated use of the same material; both snake and rat are made of lead crystal - life and death are so deeply intertwined that they are one, hence made of the same substance. This somewhat serious quasi-intellectual notion is yet again immediately turned on it’s head and contrasted by a slapstick comedic-like hierarchical placement: the snake higher than the rat, underlining it’s superiority. This statement is so direct, flat and obvious that it negates previous ponderings and brings down the sculpture from the mental ethers and humanizes it in a funny, amusing and self-aware way via clear cut binaries.
The title of the Gravity was an Entity not only suggests that these works exist outside the normal boundries of mundane existence in a space where gravity no longer exists, but also it’s anthropomorphic mortal passing as an an ambigiuous entity hints at the complex metaphysical multitudes of being explored within the show.